


Come Hell or High Water

by Calacious



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Established Relationship, Gift Fic, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kissing, M/M, Marriage, Temporary Amnesia, Vague bad guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 05:11:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13139754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calacious/pseuds/Calacious
Summary: Steve believes Danny, taken by a group of sadistic men, is dead, but finds him, nearly a month after he was taken, and a week after Steve had captured the 'big-game hunters' who'd taken Danny and a dozen other men (all dead), stumbling along the shores of Waikiki.





	Come Hell or High Water

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IreneClaire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IreneClaire/gifts).



> Mele Kalikimaka! I hope that you enjoy your Christmas. :-)
> 
> I apologize for the run-on sentence for the summary.

There's blood on his fingers. He doesn't know where it came from, if it's his own blood or someone else's. He doesn't know...anything, not even who, or where, he is, or what he's doing walking down a sidewalk lined with palm trees set against a bright, blue sky.

The last thing he remembers, and he's not even sure that it can be considered a memory, is the sensation of unending falling. 

_ Falling, falling, falling, and then...this _ , walking down a palm tree studded street, blue skies overhead and some large, crashing body of water on his left. He can hear the sound of the waves over that of the laughter and shouts of people. It's rhythmic and soothing.

Wanting to be nearer the water, needing to wash the blood off his fingers, he veers sharply to the left, loses his footing, and falls to the sand. It's not interminable. He's able to pick himself up off the sand, and is happy that this fall had been short.

There's sand mixed with blood on his fingers, and his bare feet, on the cut off shorts that he's wearing. Maybe he's some kind of sea monster, or werewolf called on by the full moon. 

_ Had there been a full moon? _

He thinks he remembers hearing, or reading about them, or maybe he only knows about the existence of these monsters because he is one.

Maybe the blood is from whoever he'd killed in some kind of monstrous fury. The thought makes him shudder, and when he brings a blood coated finger to his lips and tastes the blood mixed with sand, he nearly sicks up. He can't be a very good monster if he is one. The thought of drinking blood, or tearing apart flesh and then consuming it, makes him feel faint.

"Danny!" someone nearby shouts.

He ignores the shout, and concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other, because the water is not going to come to him, he's got to go to it. He has to wash the blood and sand off of his body. He must look like a monster.

"Danny!" The shout is closer, louder, more insistent.

He wonders who this, Danny, is and if the man, or woman (it's a woman's name, too, isn't it?) will ever answer, because the loud shouting is starting to reverberate through his head, which is pounding like the little drummer boy on that first Christmas Eve spent in the manger.

He's not sure where that thought or memory comes from, but it's fleeting, and he stumbles his way toward the water's edge, ignoring the repeated shouts of, "Danny!" and the increased frequency of them.

He must get to the water. Must wash his hands, his face, his body. He must get clean.

He shivers when the water crashes against his toes, but doesn't stop walking until the waves swell up to his waist and he's able to start rinsing off the blood. The thought of sharks momentarily stills his hands, but he shakes that fear off, and reaches down into the water for a handful of sand to help him scrub off the dried blood. He's coated in the stuff. It's tacky and the smell of it is making him sick.

The call of, "Danny!" reaches him in the water, and follows him down under a wave. It crashes against his ears when he emerges, salty water dripping from his hair, his face, his clothes. The blood pinks the briny waters around him, and he watches it fade away, wonders if it will call to some deep sea creature and he'll be swallowed whole.

He lets another wave crash over him, walking deeper into the water, ignoring the next shout of, "Danny!" in favor of ridding himself of every last drop of blood that's staining his skin.

When the wave recedes, he scrubs at his flesh with sand, scrubs and scrubs until his skin feels raw and bruised, until every last remnant of blood is gone. He's cold, his stomach feels like it's on fire, and his head feels light.

"Danny." A hand lands on his shoulder. Immovable. Iron-like. Terrifying.

He tries to jerk away, but loses his footing, takes the bearer of the no longer shouting voice down with him. The wave tosses them about, makes his stomach ache, and his head pound mercilessly. When it frees them, he finds himself being pulled to his feet and propelled toward the shore.

"No," he says, fighting the hand, the shouting man, though his salt bath seems to have left him weak and shivering, unable to truly fight against the vice-like grip that the man has on him.

"Danny, stop," the voice says. "I'm trying to help you."

The voice sounds exasperated. Desperate. He stops fighting, lets the man cart him onto the shore where they both collapse, side by side, in the sand.

"What were you thinking?" the voice asks after they've regained their breath.

"I had to wash away the blood," he says, wondering why this man is questioning him, why he's talking to him like they know each other.

"What blood?" the man asks.

He looks down at his hands. They're shaky and wrinkled from his time in the saltwater. "The blood on my hands."

The man sits up, and he takes a good look at the man with the shouting, now calm, voice. Dark, close-cropped hair, hazel blue-green eyes, full lips, wrinkles of worry and crow's feet that are almost fetching. The man is muscular, and has tattoos and scars that speak of past exploits. The man is handsome and rugged.

The man reaches for his hands, envelopes them with his own warm hands, and then presses a kiss to each bruised knuckle. He blinks at the man, unsure, and at a complete loss as to what is happening. It seems far too intimate for complete strangers.

"I thought I'd lost you forever, that they’d killed you, like they said they had," the man says, voice thick, eyes welling with tears. "And then, there you were, just walking out into the ocean."

He shakes his head, and groans at the pain that it causes. He doesn't know this man, and, as beautiful as the man is, as nice as it is to be touched so gently, and loved on, he isn't sure that it's right, that he deserves such affection. He was covered in blood just a few minutes ago, and he's still not sure whose blood it was, or who the hell he is.

"I'm not Danny," he says, regretting his words the second they slip out of his mouth. He'd really like to be, Danny, whoever the hell that is, because Danny is one lucky motherfucker to have a man like this in his life.

"What do you mean?" the man asks, searching his eyes for something.

"I'm not Danny," he repeats slowly. "And I have no idea who you are, so if you could...you know, give me my hands back, that would be great."

He'd rather let the man continue to hold his hands, because it feels so good, so warm, so...right, but it isn't fair to whoever this lost Danny is for him to take advantage of the man that he clearly loves, and who clearly loves him.

Instead of letting go, the man holds his hands tighter and continues to search his eyes. He lets out a curse, and flattens his lips in a thin line. "You have a head injury, probably a concussion. I think you're suffering from amnesia. Shit."

He laughs, and it makes his headache, leaves him dizzy. His stomach does a little flip flop when the man cups his cheek with one hand, while still holding his hands with the other, and leans in to deliver a chaste kiss to his lips.

"My name is, Steve," the man says, forehead pressed against his, thumb rubbing along his jawline. "And you are Danny, though I don't expect you to believe that just now."

He gives Steve a skeptical look, and opens his mouth to protest, but Steve cuts his protest off with another kiss that makes his heart race, and his vision swim. 

"I'm sorry," Steve says. "It's...you've been gone for nearly a month, and I thought you were,” he swallows thickly. “Dead....I...I missed you."

"That's more than evident," he says, and smiles when Steve pulls back a little and laughs.

"I think we'd better get you to the hospital," Steve says, pulling him to his feet, and practically carrying him along the sidewalk to an awaiting truck. He's not even sure he can get up into the truck, it's so large.

"Men and their egos," he says, and his heart flutters when Steve laughs.

He likes the sound of Steve's laughter, could get used to hearing it, but is afraid that, once they reach the hospital, he'll be discovered to be an imposter, some monster lookalike. An alien in human skin.

The hospital is busy. Too bright. Too many people with too many reaching hands, and he wants to lash out at them, to bite and claw his way free as they 'examine' him, but Steve is there with him, so he doesn't. The personal invasion feels familiar, and while it hurts, it doesn't hurt like past invasions had. Invasions that he tries to remember, but can't, other than the absolute, white-hot pain of them.

He answers the questions that he can, ignores those he can't, and after a terrifying CT scan that leaves him breathless and panicky, he's wheeled to a room where Steve is waiting, and hooked up to machines that are supposed to monitor him, and IVs that are supposed to help combat dehydration and malnutrition.

He hadn't realized that he'd lost weight, that he was thirsty, that the stubble on his face, or the length of his dirty hair was not customary. He hadn't really been aware of himself at all, had just seen the blood on his fingers, remembered the drip, drip of it off the ceiling fan, the way it had pooled beneath another man's head, and trickled out of the man's mouth.

_ Dead. _

_ Eyes sunken. _

_ Cheeks hollow. _

_ Flies buzzing, buzzing around the black pool of blood, buzzing from his open mouth, picking at the man's dead, staring eyes. _

"Easy, wake up, Danny," Steve says. "It's just a nightmare. You're safe now."

'Nightmare?' he thinks as he blinks awake, sees Steve's careworn face hovering over his own, and wants to reach up to touch and make sure that Steve is real, that what Steve has said is true. He doesn't. Instead, he fists his hand in the blankets and tries to steady his breathing. It's erratic. Erratic breathing will lead to something bad. It will lead to them knowing and coming and...

He feels like ants are crawling underneath his skin. He's both hot and cold. His head is floating independently of his body, above himself, above Steve. He can see himself, and it terrifies him.

"Sh," Steve says, kissing, running fingers through recently trimmed hair, caressing. "No one's going to hurt you, okay? You're safe."

He doesn't feel safe, but doesn't say anything to Steve about it, because he likes the way the man's lips, fingers, breath feel against his skin, and, even if he isn't Danny, he wants to keep the man that Danny must have loved. Steve brushes at a tear that slides down his face, and kisses him, soothes him back to sleep with softly uttered words and promises of being safe.

_ Rotting flesh smells cloyingly sweet. _

_ He's hungry, but he doesn't dare do what they want him to do. Doesn't even glance at the body that he'd dragged into the far corner of the small shed a couple of days ago. _

_ He can still feel the man's blood on his hands, feel the cold of dead flesh beneath his fingernails, hear their taunting words as they try to goad him into cannibalism to survive. He will rot in hell before he gives in. _

_ 'You're already in Hell, sweetheart,' one of the men says, and he laughs. It's sickly and rotting as are the hands that touch and pet and stroke him as though he's a doll or a small child. He can't move. Can't do anything, other than endure. _

"Danny, c'mon, wake up," Steve's voice breaks through the sound of sobbing. "It's okay. You're safe. Just a nightmare."

It wasn't a nightmare, though. He knows that. He takes a shaky breath, rubs at his eyes, and swallows down another cry. He's weak, and his mind is reeling, and he just wants to escape it all.

"Sorry," he says, knowing this can't be easy for Steve to watch.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," Steve says, adamant, gently touching the places that the monsters -- they'd been the monsters, he hadn't -- had touched, bringing them back to life again.

"I...they...I couldn't," he says, eyes welling with tears that he does not want to fall. "I couldn't stop them," he says as the first tendrils of memory seep from nightmares into conscious thought and he recalls the men who'd taken him, who'd made him fight other men, who'd butchered innocent men while laughing, and who'd played with those they'd left alive. It had been nothing but a sick, twisted game for them.

"They...they..."

"We found them," Steve assures. There's a hard edge to his voice. "They won't be hurting anyone else ever again. Not where they are."

He wonders if that's code for dead, or if Steve and whoever worked with him had found some dark, dank hole to keep those men in. One they, like the men they'd taken and toyed with, could never in a million years crawl out of. He kind of hopes it's the latter. The only reason he'd been able to escape was because they'd decided to stop toying with him, and bring him out of his personal hellhole to hunt and kill.

"Good," he says. It helps, some, knowing that the men won't be able to torture others and steal their sense of safety and self as they had him and the others who'd been with him.

"I'm sorry we didn't find them sooner," Steve says. "Sorry we didn't find you sooner."

"Doesn't matter," he says, wanting that to be true, though it isn't.

Steve shakes his head. "I can't help but think that if we'd found out about these twisted, big-game hunting assholes sooner, then you wouldn't be going through any of this."

"You mean, that I'd remember being Danny, and --"

"No," Steve says, shaking his head, eyes steely. "I don't mean just your memory, I mean all of it. I'm sorry, Danny."

Searching Steve's eyes, and his face, he smiles, reaches for Steve's hand, and brings it to his lips.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, babe," he says, the words slip easily from his lips, sound familiar in an achy sort of way that leaves him momentarily dizzy and blinking up at Steve as a memory, before his captivity, starts to take shape.

It's a powerful memory, and he sucks in a breath, clutches at Steve's hand, and opens and closes his mouth as he tries, but fails to put the memory into words. Steve's looking at him with intense concern, he recognizes that pained look, the look that he'd dubbed the 'constipation' look years ago. Memories are flooding back to him at monstrous force, and he's not sure what to do with them, how to classify them, if his mind can even handle the crushing onslaught of them.

"Danny?" Steve's face is hovering above, eyes wide with concern, hand poised to call in a nurse or doctor.

Shaking his head, he licks his lips, and forces a single word out, "Memories."

Steve's brow furrows with concern, eyes clouding, fingers digging a little too hard into Danny's wrist. Danny shakes his head and blinks back tears. He'd known that Steve loved him, hell, they'd gotten married -- if that memory had been true -- but until this moment, Danny hadn't realized just how much Steve truly loved him.

"Love you, Neanderthal," Danny says through the aching press of memories.

Steve's eyes go comically wide, and then his face lights up with a hundred watt smile, and Danny can't help but chuckle when Steve lets out a whoop of joy.

"You remember!" he shouts, and then kisses Danny firmly on the lips, steals his breath.

When Danny's mouth is finally relinquished, and his breath has been regained, he pats Steve's hand. "That's what I was trying to tell you, Army boy."

Steve rolls his eyes. "How many times do I have to tell you that I was in the Navy, Danny?" he asks, not for once doubting that Danny's memory has returned.

This, too is familiar to Danny, a pattern that he delights falling into. "For as many years as we're together," Danny says.

The tender look in Steve's eyes when he leans in to steal another kiss, makes Danny's stomach drop to his toes. He loves this man, and is glad that Steve hadn't given up on him.  _ Till death do us part, come hell or high water, for all eternity _ , he's got a man worthy of them all.

  
  
  



End file.
